Matthew 16:28

crux interpretum, supposed by some to refer to the Transfiguration (Hilary, Chrys., Euthy., Theophy., etc.); by others to the destruction of Jerusalem (Wetstein, etc.); by others again to the origins of the Church (Calvin, Grotius, etc.). The general meaning can be inferred with certainty from the purpose to furnish an additional incentive to fidelity. It is: Be of good courage, there will be ample compensation for trial soon; for some of you even before you die. This sense excludes the Transfiguration, which came too soon to be compensatory. The uncertainty comes in in connection with the form in which the general truth is stated. As to that, Christ's speech was controlled not merely by His own thoughts but by the hopes of the future entertained by His disciples. He had to promise the advent of the Son of Man in His Kingdom or of the Kingdom of God in power (Mk.) within a generation, whatever His own forecast as to the future might be. That might postulate a wider range of time than some of His words indicate, just as some of His utterances and His general spirit postulate a wide range in space for the Gospel (universalism) though He conceived of His own mission as limited to Israel. If the logion concerning the Church (Matthew 16:18) be genuine, Jesus must have conceived a Christian era to be at least a possibility, for why trouble about founding a Church if the wind-up was to come in a few years? The words of Jesus about the future provide for two possible alternatives: for a near advent and for an indefinitely postponed advent. His promises naturally contemplate the former; much of His teaching about the kingdom easily fits into the latter. γεύσωνται θ.: a Hebrew idiom, but not exclusively so. For examples of the figure of tasting applied to experiences, vide Elsner in Mk. For Rabbinical use, vide Schöttgen and Wetstein. ἕως ἄν ἴδωσι, subjunctive after ἐν ἄν as usual in classics and N. T. in a clause referring to a future contingency depending on a verb referring to future time.